Seamus Coleman and Dominic Calvert-Lewin both came close to settling the contest in the Blues’ favour during a grandstand finale – with the visitors’ best chance a close-range Dominic Solanke strike which was brilliantly saved by Jordan Pickford.
Pickford was on his mettle again to deny James Milner, while Liverpool number one Loris Karius was forced into an accomplished stop by Yannick Bolasie’s long-range, first-half curler.
Tom Davies set the initial tone for the Blues, snapping into Jordan Henderson and forcing the Liverpool midfielder to cough up possession to Wayne Rooney in the centre of the park, albeit Coleman’s eventual cross was cut out at the front post.
Theo Walcott was equally wide awake on six minutes to catch Ragnar Klavan – operating in an unfamiliar left-back berth - dawdling on the ball, Virgil Van Dijk needing to step across and bail his teammate out of a bind of his own making.
Liverpool’s first raid, sparked by some neat footwork on halfway by Sadio Mane, ended with the advancing Georginio Wijnaldum blazing over the top after being teed up by Solanke.
Solanke was rather closer on 12 minutes with a header which drifted a foot beyond Pickford’s left-hand post following Milner’s cross from the left.
Pickford, though, could not afford to stand and watch when Liverpool next streamed forward. Nathaniel Clyne dished up the delivery from the right. Coleman caught sight of the ball late as it dropped over a mass of bodies and was only able to nudge it back into the middle of the box – and Solanke’s feet.
The striker, although appearing to lack conviction as the ball landed with him, quickly got his shot away - but was denied by Pickford, demonstrating tremendous reactions to plunge to his left and save. Phil Jagielka was on hand to complete the clear-up job.
For all Liverpool’s prolonged spells of possession, however, the Toffees were, for the most part, keeping the visitors at arm’s length.
Moreover, a Goodison Park crowd longing for something to get its teeth into was given plenty to bite on when Tosun’s striking instincts – after he had sneaked on Henderson’s wrong side - demanded he spin on a bouncing ball 20 yards out and fire a shot which dripped a fraction too late to trouble Karius.
Amid all the penalty-box action, it was something more rudimentary – and fitting the occasion – which lifted the thick end of 40,000 Evertonians to their feet, Wayne Rooney tenaciously chasing Milner and dumping his opponent to the turf with a thundering – and perfectly legitimate – recovery tackle.
The same group of supporters’ blood was up soon after when Dejan Lovren’s bodycheck on Walcott – moving through the heart of the pitch at full throttle – was punished with nothing more than a free-kick.
The uneasy Klavan sliced behind in his own penalty box when he had plenty of time to do better. But if the Estonian looked rushed in his work, then Bolasie was poise personified on 22 minutes.
The Everton winger drifted in from the left, coolly assessing his options, before plumping for the one which came most naturally. He unleashed a delicious right-foot, curling effort which would have nestled inside Karius’ left post were it not for an excellent sprawling, fingertip stop from the Liverpool goalkeeper.
Pickford would not necessarily have wanted to prove his athleticism did not suffer by comparison with his opposite number’s. But seven minutes later he was called on to do exactly that.
Milner collected a pass from Henderson on the left, then travelled a similar path to the one chosen by Bolasie, manipulating the ball inside and onto his right boot for a shot brilliantly turned round the far post by a fully-extended Pickford.
The Everton goalkeeper’s handling was equally immaculate when he clung on to Van Dijk’s ambitious long-range free-kick 10 minutes before the break.
Mane curled high from 25 yards on the stroke of half-time – and moments after Bolasie and Danny Ings collided in a tackle which will probably have both men checking for bruises in the morning.
It was another one to bring an acutely partisan Goodison crowd to the boil. The contingent of hardy veterans of this fixture – Kevin Ratcliffe, Graeme Sharp and Kenny Dalglish et al – watching on from the Main Stand, would, you suspect, have considered it a rather routine exchange.
Even those hardened observers, however, would have appreciated the ferocity of a pair of challenges – Coleman on Milner, then Solanke the recipient from Jagielka – immediately after the restart.
Those tackles, delivered one after the other, heralded a period of attritional football, neither side particularly progressive but not giving an inch in what was turning into an edgy contest.
Milner’s cross on 55 minutes, too high for Solanke, after the midfielder had been released down the right by Lovren was about the extent of it in either penalty area for a good 25 minutes – the greatest excitement generated by Coleman going toe-to-toe with Ings following a coming together between the duo.
Sam Allardyce injected fresh legs into his side around the hour mark in the shape of Idrissa Gana Gueye and Calvert-Lewin – Rooney and then Bolasie making way in quick succession – while Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp’s first throw of the dice saw Milner scuttle off midway through the second 45 minutes, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain his replacement. And very nearly to immediate and telling effect.
The midfielder strode forward and let fly from distance. His strike was true but always rising and cleared Pickford’s crossbar by a foot.
Mane then wriggled away from Michael Keane to feed Solanke for a low shot blocked by Coleman. The ball rebounded kindly for the Liverpool man, who chose the same route to goal, with the same outcome.
That was it so far as Mane’s day was concerned, with the Senegalese’s number promptly coming up. And the Reds second substitute, Roberto Firmino, was still finding his senses when he was robbed on halfway by Gueye. The midfielder shovelled play on to Calvert-Lewin to slam a shot that as veered off its goalbound course by the legs of Lovren.
Everton had their tails up now. Leighton Baines galloped onto a cute through ball from Davies and sent over a rapid delivery which evaded the lunging Tosun’s boot by no more than an inch.
Tosun wanted to grasp the initiative now. The Turk was too strong for Lovren on the left flank and, leaving the defender in his slipstream, progressed into the box to square for Walcott. The pass, though, was directed slightly behind the former Arsenal man, whose footing betrayed him as he tried to adjust – enabling the ball to run out of harm’s way.
And with three minutes to play, the moment when Everton so nearly won the contest. Walcott, moments after watching a terrific delivery fly across the box unmolested, lifted another ball from the right to the back post.
Tosun had too much for Lovren again, leaping to steer a header back where the ball had come from and agonisingly out of reach of Coleman, steaming forward from his full-back berth.
Sixty seconds later and the Irishman was on his bike again, this time with the ball at his feet. His delivery was all along the ground, passing through a host of bodies, before alighting with Calvert-Lewin. He took aim but was off target with his attempt to finish across Karius’ body.
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